Comparison of A Doll’s House and A Streetcar Named Desire Essay

Prompt 14 Important qualitys in conveys argon multi-dimensional. Discuss to what extent this statement is true of important characters in plays you have studied and comment on the techniques of characterization employed by the dramatist.Multidimensional characters can also be defined as high-powered or constantly changing and developing characters. These moral force characters are not simply important to a play, but are arguably the some important characters because what the dramatist intends to communicate to his or her audience is communicated finished and through the changing emotions and behaviors of these characters.Additionally, playwrights use a variety of techniques to highlight the changes an important character may go through. The converse, staging and stage directions, setting, music, lighting, and even window-dresss can all be used to highlight a multifaceted characters turned on(p) and physical changes. In A ladys House, by Henrik Ibsen, and A cable tramway N amed Desire, by Tennessee Williams, the playwrights primarily use costumes, which parallel the emotional and behavioral changes of important slashing characters, and contrast in talks to amplify developments and changes in the characters relationships and behavior.Ibsens choice of costume design portrays Nora as a dynamic character in A Dolls House. Ibsen changes Noras costume to parallel her behavioral and emotional changes in the play. The Neapolitan fisher-girl costume, for example, ranges Noras secrets and their restraint on her autonomy (Ibsen 29). Therefore, Noras want to tear the masque costume into a hundred thousand pieces represents her will to be rid of her lies and to take off of the mask she puts on for Helmer (Ibsen 28). The costume facilitates this need end-to-end the second act of play. When Nora practices the Tarantella dance, she dances wildly and her hair comes down and fall over her shoulders (Ibsen 47).Wild and take over hair has connotations of independen ce and liberation. Therefore, the costume begins to show the audience her will to free herself from the mask she puts on for Helmer. However, she remains in the dress at this point in the play centre that she is still restricted by the disguise she wears for Helmers satisfaction. Again, the dress highlights Noras development when it is removed in Act III before Nora gathers the courage to tell Helmer she must leave him to gain her independence. Noras masquerade costume dinner dress costume conveys how Noras lies and mask of happiness restrain her freedom and helps to illustrate her eventual secede from them. Therefore, the costume design amplifies the characteristics that make Nora a dynamic character.Williams also uses his costume designs to characterize his dynamic characters in A Streetcar Named Desire. However, rather than connecting a specific costume with a feeling, he associates a global type of costume with specific emotions and actions. For example, the lavish costuming of Blanche represents the extent of her desire for, and delusion of, an extravagant life. As the play opens and Blanche enters, her appearance is described as incongruous to the setting (Williams 15). She is introduced being dressed as if she believes she should be somewhere and some cardinal else. Furthermore, her beauty from the white suit with a fluffy bodice, necklace and earrings of pearl is described as indulgent and sensitive to light (Williams 15).This description of Blanche suggests that her rich and royal appearance is purely superficial and does not represent the reality of her life. This connection amid costume design and Blanches fabricated reality is continued throughout the play. Before beginning to flirt with the young paper boy in Scene Five, Blanche takes a large, see-through scarf from the trunk and drapes it about her shoulders, and then begins to pretend he is a young Prince and later makes Mitch deform to her (Williams 84).The playwright, Tennessee William s, connects Blanches affluent adornment with her delusions of wealth and importance that develop and grow stronger as the play progresses. In the terminal scene, Blanches illusions blend almost entirely with her reality as she asks Stella to gather a number of dilate accessories, including a cool yellow silk boucle and a silver and turquoise pin in the shape of a seahorse, and dresses herself in a dress and jacket of a color that Madonna once wore (Williams 132/135). Williams uses this costume to amplify the absurdity of Blanches illusion of spending her life on the sea with a millionaire. Therefore, Blanches costume choices in A Streetcar Named Desire connect to her developing insanity, which makes her a complex and dynamic character.In A Dolls House, Ibsen also utilizes tension in communication, specifically the tension amidst Noras inward and outbound building of feelings surrounding worth, to portray Nora as a dynamic character. The playwright first creates a contradiction in terms between her internal and external feelings, only to eventually change her unvarnished expression to match her true feelings. In the first two acts of the play, Noras outward expression of a womans worth revolves around being a good married woman and mother by aiming to please Helmer, her married man. However, her inward feelings portray the opposite. Nora inwardly believes that worth involves being true to herself. Nora is outwardly submissive to her economize by allowing herself to be called by possessive pet names, much(prenominal) as his little spendthrift, his squirrel, or his extravagant little person (Ibsen 2-3).Furthermore, even Nora uses these labels for herself during the first two acts. These names put Nora in a submissive position because they define Nora as a possession of Helmers. Therefore, when Nora labels herself a skylark or squirrel, she outwardly submits to the will of her husband, proving her external idea of worth revolves around his happiness. How ever, whenever Nora yields to Helmer, there are undertones of sarcasm within the dialogue portrayed both by the stage directions and the writing. When Nora first calls herself Helmers skylark and squirrel, she does so while dexterous quietly and happily, as if she aims to manipulate him with her words (Ibsen 4). This example of irony mixed with manipulation illustrates the contradiction between what Nora outwardly expresses and what she internally believes.Noras sarcasm is also present directly in her dialogue with Helmer. In the conclusion of the first act, Nora asks Helmer to take her in hand and decide how she should attend the masquerade ball (Ibsen 25). The sarcasm she speaks these lines with is evident when she utilizes hyperboles to appeal to Helmers ego, such as telling him no one has such good taste and that she cant get along a bit without his help (Ibsen 25). Therefore, Noras exaggerated submission to Helmer suggests a dichotomy between her internal ideas of worth and he r actions. Yet, as the play develops, Noras actions begin to match her interpretation of value. She begins to overtly become a subject of her life, rather than the subject of her husbands.In the final pages of Act III, Nora discards the view she externally portrayed in the first acts of A Dolls House by explicitly rejecting Helmers assertion that before all else, she is a wife and a mother (Ibsen 66). She explains to Helmer that she believes that before all else she is a reasonable human being who must commemorate over things for herself and get to understand them (Ibsen 66). This rejection of blind obedience and assertion of autonomy supports the claim that Noras outward expression developed over the course of the final act to match her opinion of worthiness. Because Noras expression of merit changed over the course of the play, she is considered a dynamic, or multifaceted character. Therefore, Ibsens use of dialogue in A Dolls House is instrumental in portraying Nora as an import ant and three-d character.Tennessee Williams also uses tension in dialogue within his play, A Streetcar Named Desire, to portray his significant characters as multidimensional. However, rather than creating tension by using contradiction to develop a single characters dialogue, Williams creates tension by contrasting the dialogue of Stanley and Blanche. This distinction between the two characters, and the way they communicate in the play, causes behavioral changes suggesting that dialogue is responsible for dynamic transformations in the characters actions. Blanches wrangle is educated and full of literary illusions. She uses a reference to the gothic poet Edgar Allen Poe to describe her sisters life and situation by barter her neighborhood the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir (Williams 20).This complexity present in Blanches dialogue portrays her as a standard of the old, aristocratic South. In contrast with Blanches more sophisticated way of speaking, Stanley uses simple societa l ground metaphors and commonplace clichs in his dialogue. Rather than using a literary based metaphor for Blanche, Stanley uses one based on politics. Stanley describes her fame in Laurel as if she were the President of the United States, only she is not reckon by any party (Williams 99).Additionally, the clichs Stanley uses in his speech, such as no, siree, bob, boy, oh, boy, or the jig was all up portrays Stanley as the down-to-earth representation of the New South (Williams 100-101). The contrast between the dialogue of the two characters and the connection it has with the social group they identify with highlights their dynamic characteristics by emphasizing Blanches attempt and ultimate failure to integrate herself into the less aristocratic and educated New Orleans. Therefore, the playwrights effort to contrast the dialogues of Blanche and Stanley facilitates Blanches representation as a multifaceted and changing character in A Streetcar Named Desire.Analyzing how a playwri ght portrays his or her dynamic characters gives insight into what the playwright intends to say through their development. For example, Henrik Ibsen uses a single costume to connect the audience with Noras progression into an autonomous woman in order to focus the audiences attention on a single facet of Noras life and desires, while Williams uses many costumes with varying degrees of lavishness, to highlight the degree to which Blanche blends reality with fantasy.Furthermore, Ibsen uses tension in dialogue of a single character to keep the audiences focus on Nora, while Williams contrasts the speech of two characters to highlight the contrast between two different social worlds, the new and old South. Therefore, the most important characters in a play are always multidimensional characters because most of a playwrights commentary is included in the development of these characters and analyzing the techniques a playwright employs to distinguish a dynamic character helps to convey m eaning.BibliographyIbsen, Henrik. A Dolls House. Print.Williams, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire. New York Signet, 1975. Print.